


Family, New and Old

by RosaleenBan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Domestic archangel, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Team Free Will, established relationships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:15:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1872720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosaleenBan/pseuds/RosaleenBan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There was nothing Gabriel could do to heal the Winchesters' past, only their futures."</p><p>In which Gabriel tries to cheer Dean up, and gives him the best gift he can in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family, New and Old

**Author's Note:**

> It's always bothered me how much the brothers lose through their lives. This is my attempt to fix that, at least a little.
> 
> Also, I'm shit at titles. Especially when I write an entire story on my phone during work. (Oh yeah, slow day....)

Archangels are powerful.

Archangel demigods with enough clandestine worshippers to sustain a healthy stream of pagan power?

Well, Gabriel was arguably the most powerful being currently residing on earth, or at least the most powerful (mostly) good guy. And that meant that the humans who he had adopted as family sometimes experienced the impossible.

Dean had been melancholy and withdrawn lately. And usually that would mean Gabriel would just avoid his favorite brother’s mate, but Dean’s state upset both Castiel and Sam. When his brother and his own mate weren’t happy, Gabriel wasn’t happy.

And, though he’d never admit it, he didn’t really like seeing Dean upset either.

He decided to use some of that boundless, impossible power to help for once.

In this case, the impossible meant going back in time. Not to change anything – time was set, and there was nothing he could do to heal the Winchester’s past, only their future. But to collect some items.

A box liberated from a car just before the crash that destroyed it. Some books liberated from a house about to catch fire. Scraps of paper in the midst of a massacre. Nothing that would be immediately noticed, but all things that would eventually be missed.

And sometimes, an extra bystander in the park, or a bar – someone no one would ever recognize, or think of again.

He sent the Winchesters on a wild goose chase, Cas watching over their shoulders to ensure they didn’t return too soon, just for good measure, so he could take his time.

 

…

 

Dean was annoyed when he stepped into the bunker. The last five days had been a waste of time: a simple salt-and-burn turned into days of research and following false trails. He half suspected his brother was somehow pranking him, except Sam had been just as annoyed as Dean.

He trudged down the stairs into the main library, dropping his bag on a table.

He looked up and froze, vaguely aware of Sam walking into his back before stopping himself.

Hung above the telescope, in a place of honor, was a huge black and white photo of Cas, Sam, Ellen, Dean, Jo and Bobby, the last still in his wheelchair. Dean remembered that day, just before the apocalypse. Below it, a brass plate proclaimed “Team Free Will, Pre-Apocalypse, 2009.”

He looked around slowly, checking for any other changes to the bunker, when the table caught his eye. Slowly, one by one, standing picture frames of all sizes began to fade into existence. A shot of him holding Sam as a baby. Another of Bobby throwing a ball to him when he was eight, Sammy behind him dragging a bat that looked like it was twice his weight, taken by some unknown stranger. A candid picture of him hugging Jo, while Sam and Ash laughed beside them.

There were older, stranger ones too: a large wedding portrait of John and Mary Winchester – and beside it, a similar one of Henry Winchester and a woman who could only be their paternal grandmother.

“Sammy?” Dean asked hoarsely, looking to his brother.

“I see them,” Sam assured him, stepping forward reverently to look at a small picture of himself as an infant, throwing food as a young Dean tried to feed him and their mother looked on laughing.

“What is this?”

“Gabriel, I would assume,” Sam said. A box appeared close to him on a library table, with two photo books beside it. Each book was bound in black leather, and had each of their names written in silver script. Dean recognized the box as the one the new residents of their childhood home had given them years ago, when they had visited Lawrence looking for their father. He knew it was filled with old family pictures.

He had thought it had been lost years ago, around the same time John Winchester had died.

“Why?” he asked, forcing the word out. Dean wasn’t the type to cry openly, but he was uncomfortably close to breaking that habit as he looked at the pictures of lost friends and family.

He wouldn’t – couldn’t – let himself be overwhelmed like that. It was too much, too shocking. Instead, he funneled those emotions into anger – even Gabriel shouldn’t have the gall to do this – to shove this in Dean’s face. To remind him of everything he had lost in his life – every person he had loved but couldn’t save.

“Why?” he asked again when he didn’t get a response, voice harsh and just a bit too loud this time.

The archangel materialized before him, a slight smile on his face. “I thought you'd like it, Dean-o. Thought you might like some reminders around here.”

Dean stared at the archangel for a moment. Gabriel wasn’t displaying any of his usual bravado or arrogance – he was just standing there, leaning against a bookshelf, looking earnest and kind. Was this how his brother saw him all the time?

He frowned, hardening his resolve against any kind of chick flick moment. “Well don’t,” he said, turning to stalk away.

He was intercepted by a frowning Castiel – of course he was, he thought with a heavy sigh. His angel wasn’t about to let him throw a tantrum and stomp out to his room. Even _he_ knew he was being a jerk.

“Dean,” Cas intoned. “My brother was only trying to give you back something you thought you had lost.” He held something, which he pressed into Dean’s hand insistently. It was an older framed picture, one Dean had seen before: Mary Winchester holding an infant Sam as John lifted Dean on his shoulders. All three of them were smiling widely.

Dean sat down as he stared at it, his anger draining out as quickly as it had been conjured.

“I remember this one,” Dean said softly. “It hung in Sammy’s nursery. I thought this had burned with the house.”

“It would have,” Gabriel told him softly. “I didn’t think it should, though.”

Sam stepped behind him, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder and looking down. Dean leaned into his brother’s comforting touch, feeling unshed tears burning his eyes.

“Thanks,” Dean said roughly, looking over the pictures on the table and reaching for the photo album with his name on it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to open it.

“No problemo,” Gabriel said flippantly, a poor attempt at lightening the mood.

“Perhaps you would like to show me some of them?” Castiel asked Dean, looking down at the album in his hand. “I would like to hear the stories that go along with the pictures.”

Dean gave a small smile. “Sure thing, Cas,” he said, gaining more control over his voice.

“In our bunk?” Castiel asked hopefully, reaching out a hand for the hunter.

Dean took it and allowed the angel to lead him down to their bunker, quickly grabbing a couple of his favorite photos to hang on the wall later.

 

 

…

 

Sam watched his brother leave the library with Castiel, arms full of pictures and bag still forgotten on the floor, as he fought a lump in his own throat. He wasn’t quite as affected by the display as Dean had been, never really knowing what a real home and family was like to begin with, but seeing those pictures made him ache that much more for one.

He crossed the room to gather his archangel into a tight hug. “Thanks,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of Gabriel’s head.

“Hey, no need to thank me,” Gabriel told him. “I actually thought it would lift that dark mood of his.”

Sam chuckled. If Gabriel had a blind spot, it was how the Winchesters would react. To anything.

“If you wanted to cheer him up, you should have tried pie,” Sam suggested. He looked back toward the door where Dean and Cas had left. “But I think this is better. Much better.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow incredulously.

“He’ll cheer up once he figures out how to repress everything else again,” Sam explained with a wry grin. “And he really is grateful.”

Gabriel shook his head. “Winchesters,” he said as though it was a swear.

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam grinned, leaning down to bury his face in Gabe’s hair. “I love you, you know that?”

“Of course I know that,” Gabriel told him salaciously. “I don’t think you’d let me do half the things I do to you if you didn’t.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “One track mind. Way to ruin the moment,” he teased. “The moment _you_ created.”

Gabriel chuckled and lifted his head to kiss Sam square on the lips. “You like it?” he asked Sam when they broke apart, suddenly serious.

“Of course I do. It’s a bit… much…to take in all at once,” he admitted. “But we thought these were all gone. Thank you.”

“All part of the job,” Gabriel told him, though what job he was referring to Sam didn’t know. “Now, how about you tell me about some of these, too.”

“You’re kidding, right? You probably went to watch as all of these were taken.”

“Pretend I didn’t,” Gabriel said with a wink. “I like the way you tell stories.”

Sam smiled and picked up the album with his name on it. If he was honest, he was excited to tell Gabriel the stories. Not all of them were happy, and there were a lot of bad memories there, but they were _his_ memories – his and Dean’s – and he wanted to share them all with his angel.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback - good or bad - is a writer's lifeblood. The more we get, the more we're driven to write more and get more ;)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Family, New and Old [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2161887) by [RosaleenBan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosaleenBan/pseuds/RosaleenBan)




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